The reflection of me was lounged on the ground, laying on her back as she blew a bubble with gum, popping it loudly.
“About time you showed up,” she mumbled, pushing up to sit cross-legged as her gaze ran the length of me.
Staring back at a perfect replica of myself was eerie as hell. The only difference between us were our eyes. While I knew mine were blue under normal circumstances, and red while under the influence of a bloodhaze or bloodlust, hers were completely black like Drake’s were at times.
“Where are we?” I demanded, voice trembling as I glanced around for anything distinguishable, but it was like we were in a black hole.
Nothingness wrapped around us from every angle, making me feel like I was suffocating.
“What, you didn’t like the gushing, bloody heart on the ground when you got here? I worked hard on that,” she pouted, shoving her bottom lip out. “This is the only time we’ll ever be able to meet like this, face-to-face so to speak. I wanted to make it a flashy entrance.”
She was fucking crazy.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded, needing answers from whoever this was, but finding myself more confused with each passing second. “Am I dead?"
Holy shit.I was dead and this was the nothingness that awaited me in the afterlife, not being allowed to be at peace with my ancestors for dying as a vampire.
Tears sprang to my eyes as the realization hit me squarely in the chest. The knowledge somehow hurt more than running the blade through my heart. I would be alone for eternity.
I let my head drop, eyes on the black ground as tears began to roll down my cheeks to drop off my jaw and into the void around us. They never landed anywhere, making this place feel even more disorienting.
“Stop that,” she hissed, suddenly in my face as she gripped my chin and forced my eyes up to meet hers. They blazed with a strength I wasn’t sure I ever possessed. It poured out of her in what felt like waves, slamming into me as she said, “You will never, ever be alone, Alina. We are bound now. Your heart for my soul. We’ve devoured each other’s essence finally.”
I blinked away the tears obscuring my vision as her words sank in. “Devorare?” I questioned.
Hope broke through my sorrow.
“Yes,” she answered. “I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time, Alina. I watched my brethren come and go, over and over as I waited for your soul to be available to bond to.”
Plunking down onto my ass as she let go of my chin, I tried to wrap my brain around the information she was so casually dropping on me. We’d actually done it. We’d connected, and I wasn’t dead.
She moved to sit as well, tilting her head as she gazed at me intently. “I just have to say this, Alina…I don’t know how I feel about being used as your safe word during sex. It feels a little too intimate, even for us.”
I blanched at her words, my eyes widening to the size of saucers.
“And also, I think you should run me through Andrei for good measure to make sure he learned his lesson with betraying you. You let him off way too easily.”
My mouth flopped open. “Wait, you’ve been able to watch and hear everything around me?” I questioned, reeling over how that was possible when I couldn’t sense her until now. “For how long?”
“Ever since the coming-of-age ceremony when I materialized in your hand for the first time. My bond to you was open and complete with your acceptance and vow to me as your soul weapon, but I’ve been waiting for you to complete your end of the joining ever since. That was complicated, as I came to you before you were turned.”
My mind whirled with what felt like thousands of questions, but somehow I landed on one that knocked the breath from me as I voiced it.
“So, you were there with me…that night?”
We both knew what night I meant.
She reached out, grabbing my hand and squeezing it as she nodded. “I was with you and saw it all as you did. I felt what you felt. I wished with everything in me to have our bond complete then so that you could know then that you weren’t alone, but it wasn’t possible yet.”
My throat tightened with emotion as I murmured, “I wish I would have been able to hear you then too.”
For some reason, it brought me an odd sense of comfort that she had experienced that night from the same viewpoint I had. I didn’t have to explain any part of it to her. She knew my pain and anguish…the horrible images that plagued my mind from that night…the memory of Skye’s fearful eyes on an endless loop.
There was so much I wanted to say, but it was as if someone punched the box we were being held in as the world around us rattled and cracked like a black mirror, crevices and refractions of light shining through. Some shards held images of the training room and others the concerned looks of my mates and Lo.
“Our joining is complete, Alina,” she rushed to say, grabbing both of my hands once more and pulling me to my feet. “I’m not an affectionate soul, but seeing as this will be the only time we can do this…” She trailed off, looking slightly uncomfortable before flinging her arms around my neck and squeezing.
The second I wrapped my arms around her…Well, the only way to describe it would be like the sigh of relief you let out when you came home after an eternity away.
